Me again: This Friday's New York Times crossword is mine...

[Puzzler]

... I think it's my 84th crossword to appear in the New York Times.

Since it's a Friday NYT crossword means that it'll be pretty hard. But the difficulty should come mainly from the clues, and NOT the answer words... so you don't need to know any Bulgarian rivers, or old Latvian coins

Also, as with all Friday (and Saturday) NYT crosswords, this is a themeless puzzle. It has an interesting type of grid pattern known as "quad-stacked 15s". This means that the mid (15x4) area of the crossword has no black squares. However, all of the 15-letter answers in the center area are not obscure, so it's not quite as intimidating as it looks (I hope!).

Later, on Friday (and over the weekend), I'd be happy to email a PDF of the actual camera-ready crossword that Will Shortz sends to the printers, to any DU-ers. It looks just like the copy in the actual NYT, but it's actually the other way round: this/these are the originals.

I'll post my email address here on Friday, for any DU-ers wanting a copy. However if you could wait until Friday, I'd appreciate it, since I don't want any requests to get lost in my gmail inbox!

Regards,

-Puzzler/AKA: Martin Ashwood-Smith

[niyad]

1. this is really cool. looking forward to it.

[Puzzler]

2. Friday's NYT and Wash.Post xwords are both mine...

... I completely forgot about my Friday Washington Post crossword which will be online in a few hours: easy/medium with a theme.

My Friday New York Times crossword is online at 10 pm EST tonight. It's pretty hard (mainly the clues, not the words). Also it's called a "quad-stack" puzzle, because it has four 15-letter answer words running in a "block" through the center of the grid. So it has a large area through the center with no black squares.

To any and all solvers: have fun... or line your birdcages with them. Budgies, in particular, seem to enjoy them for "target" practice

Cheers,

-Puzzer/Martin Ashwood-Smith

[firerises]

3. So...

Are you responsible for this?

[Puzzler]

4. No...

... Parker's plagiarism was discovered by a puzzle solver that was heavily into collecting crossword stats. The only reason it had not been noticed earlier, was because Parker's USA Today crosswords generally were of appalling quality. So none (or almost none) of the USAT crossword stats were usually NOT included data bases of words and clues.

However, one person had been keeping track, and discovered the plagiarism.

Luckily 538 got involved, and Parker was fired. BTW, Parker never got involved with any other crossword forums, and was always extremely unpleasant and difficult to deal with. But also he was a hardline RW wingnut and a fundamentalist zealot, so he seemed to consider everyone else in the "business" beneath him. His firing couldn't have happened to "nicer" guy.

FYI, the USAT now has a new crossword editor (who I know), Fred Piscop, who is a dedicated professional. So the quality of the USAT crosswords are now vastly improved.

-P

[petronius]

5. GMTA, I guess! I just used 47 Across as an answer on an exam I wrote today

Thank you for the puzzle! Lots of clever clues, and I learned a few things...

[Phentex]

6. My husband is working on it...

I'm allowed to step in only when he gets stuck.

[petronius]

7. Hey! The WaPo puzzle today is yours too

I might say that:

23 Across: Martin Ashwood-Smith

23 u _ _ q _ _ t _ _ s

[Puzzler]

11. Ubiquitous? ...

... maybe today anyway. A bit of a coordinated MAS-attack.

To be honest though, the NYT crossword gets a lot of online scrutiny, some of it pretty unpleasant. So it's not always that much fun for the constructor.

-MAS

[blaze]

8. I love this weekly (I hope)

glimpse into the crossword world!

Thanks Puzzler!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. The NYT puzzle in my paper this morning

has a byline of Damon Gulczynski. Do different papers use puzzles on varying days?

[Puzzler]

10. Almost all of the syndicated NYT puzzles...

... are exactly 5 weeks (I think) behind. However the larger Sunday puzzles are 1 or 3 weeks behind.

-MAS

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. Then I'll look for your puzzle 5 weeks from now!